WHOO?

As in the earlier mysteries featuring Seattle shamus John Denson (Fish Story, etc.), the questions here are far from ordinary. To wit: Why would somebody plant 50 marijuana plants on luckless clients Terry and Mary Ellen Harkenrider? Who wrung the neck of a spotted owl representing a pitched battle between environmentalists trying to protect same and loggers determined to revitalize the local economy? Why did government inspector Jenny MacIver and lumber baron Bosley Ellin's troops get such different counts of spotted owls in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest that Ellin sued the Fish and Wildlife Service? Why does Jenny have such glowing words for her photographer beau Adonis Northlake the morning after she's hopped into Denson's bed? And--finally, an ordinary question--who shot Jenny to death before she could start her recount? Though Denson can't help figuring Adonis for her killer, it takes the wacko skills of Indian sidekick Willie Prettybird and his cohorts--along with their theft of the owl's corpse--to knit the two cases together. Waggish and flip rather than funny--though Hoyt, with a fine sense of balance, manages to find knaves and fools on both sides of the environmental debate.